Fly Jamaica flight makes emergency landing in Guyana, six hurt

By Tracy Rucinski

 

The site of a Fly Jamaica plane crash is seen in the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Guyana November 9, 2018, in this image obtained from social media Cheddi Jagan International Airport/via REUTERS

 

(Reuters) - A Fly Jamaica Boeing 757 airliner heading for Toronto made an emergency landing at the Georgetown, Guyana international airport early Friday after the pilot reported problems with the plane's hydraulic system. Six passengers were injured.

 

The pilot of Fly Jamaica flight OJ256, which was carrying 120 passengers and eight crew, requested permission to return to Cheddi Jagan International Airport soon after takeoff, Guyanese officials said at a news conference.

 

The plane overshot a recently extended runway at Georgetown, Guyana's Cheddi Jagan airport when it landed, officials said.

 

Images posted on the airport's Facebook page showed a damaged Fly Jamaica Airways jet resting in a bed of sand off the runway. In one photo, the aircraft's landing gear was upturned into a mangled wing.

(https://www.facebook.com/pg/cjairport/posts/?ref=page_internal)

 

Six passengers suffered nonlife-threatening injuries, officials said.

 

The flight data recorder and black box had been recovered and were given to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board for review, Guyanese officials said.

 

The NTSB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

The Guyana Civil Aviation Authority is also investigating, with assistance from Fly Jamaica, officials said. Boeing Co is looking into the incident, a spokesman said.

 

The U.S.-based plane manufacturer decided in late 2003 to end production of the 757. It delivered the last model of the aircraft to Shanghai Airlines in 2005, capping a 23-year production run for a mainstay of trans-Atlantic routes and cross-continental U.S. flights.

 

The jet involved in the incident is just over 19 years old, according to Airfleets.net, and has been flown by Fly Jamaica since 2013. It was previously used by seven airlines including American Trans Air.

 

In 2011 a packed Caribbean Airlines jet skidded off the runway at the Guyana airport as it landed and then broke in two at the edge of a ravine, injuring several passengers. There was no extended runway at that time.

 

Georgetown is the capital of Guyana, a country of some 778,000 on the northeastern corner of South America between Venezuela, Suriname, and Brazil.

 

Last week, an Indonesian airliner crashed into the sea soon after taking off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board.

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-11-10

Wow that was close glad all survived